EGU Lunchbag 2020

Ramp Up

General Information

Title of the event

OSGeo Lunchbag Event 2020: OSGeo Gathering of the Tribes [Working title]

Abstract

tbd

Stub from 2019: The Open Source Geospatial Foundation, or OSGeo, is a not-for-profit umbrella organization for Free and Open Source geospatial tools, including QGIS, gvSIG, GRASS GIS, Geoserver and many others. OSGeo is hosting this Townhall event to support the collaborative development of open source geospatial software by promoting sustainable Open Science within EGU.

Organizing team (Draft) [add your name!]

Convener: Peter Löwe, Maxi Cannata, <whoelse?>

Primary points of contact

at Copernicus (conference organizer): Katja Gänger (egu2018 AT copernicus DOT org)

for Copernicus: peter.loewe AT gmx DOT de massimiliano.cannata AT supsi DOT ch

URL

tbd

Overview over all EGU Townhalls

tbd

Venue / Time (requested)

Requested day: Wednesday , May 6 2020 (** to be confirmed by COPERNICUS **)

Time: 12:45–13:45 hours

Room: tbd

Estimated number of attendees: 26 + X ( seats in room + wiggle space on the floors)

Guestimate für lunchbg catering: 10-20 (to be narrowed down by info about attending OSGeoistas later)

Type of event

Lunchbag Meeting as an step forward after havin hosted Townhall sessions for 5 (?) years. The idea is to get away from the competition with other open software / data / etc. -related Townhalls which has sprung up since the first OSGeo TH started this kind of meeting format.

While there is no official definition of a Lunchbag meeting by EGU, they are a kind of specialisation of splinter meeting.

Expected Audience Size

10 - 40 people (very rough first guestimate). Room capacity is 26 seats. Significant overcrowding has been first-hand witnessed in formr years at popular splinter events.

Audience: Topical Background

Free Open Source Software from OSGeo projects affects most if not all EGU Divisions. Currently FOSS (OSGeo projects + R, GMT, etc.) is particularly strong in the Hydrology, Atmospheric Sciences, Earth and Space Sience Informatics and Tectonics Divisions.

Attendees are expected from the following fields (Academia, Research and Industry), according to the exisitng scientific EGU Divsions:

• Atmospheric Sciences
• Biogeosciences
• Climate: Past, Present & Future
• Cryospheric Sciences
• Earth Magnetism & Rock Physics
• Energy, Resources and the Environment
• Earth and Space Science Informatics
• Geodesy
• Geodynamics
• Geosciences Instrumentation and Data Systems
• Geomorphology
• Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology
• Hydrological Sciences
• Natural Hazards
• Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences
• Ocean Sciences
• Planetary and Solar System Sciences
• Seismology
• Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Palaeontology
• Soil System Sciences
• Solar-Terrestrial Sciences
• Tectonics and Structural Geology

Audience: Professional Level

• Early Career Scientists (Doctorate Students, PostDocs), Researchers, Activists, Leaders, Visionaries, Decision Makers, Funding Agencies, EGU staff,

Venue

• EGU GA location at the Vienna International Conference Centre, Austria
• Lunchbag meeting location: The townhall will be hosted in a dedicated lecture hall on the conference premises.
• Date and time: tbd
• Room: tbd

Relevance for OSGeo (Draft)

how will our participation help OSGeo

• Continuation and expansion of the "topical bridgehead" established within EGU by OSGeo Townhall series from 2014 to 2019.
• Raise awareness at and reach-out to the European geoscience community by hosting a dedicated public OSGeo event at the largest European geoscience conference.
• Reach out to young scientists starting their careers.
• Meeting place for people already active in OSGeo ("meta-BoF") as a large number of people congregates every year at the EGU GA.
• Reach out to decision makers/elders/scientific activists within the EGU Divisions.
• Culmination of the "FOSS day" at the EGU GA: The organizers are urged to to schedule all FOSS / OSGeo - related events on the same day. This will ensure we have a large audience and niceties such as "FOSS flashmobs" can be arranged for poster sessions. The "FOSS day" could and should be finished off with the OSGeo townhall, as a "multiplier/bring them all together" event.
• Peaceful und friendly coexistence: Propiertary platforms including Microsoft, Google and ESRI are also staging dedicated events during EGU GA.
• Awareness on the decision maker level: Significance of OSGeo within the emerging Data Science / Open Science debate ("-> OSGeo-tailored research programmes ?")

Budget

• Venue rental cost: none
• Catering cost: 2000 EUR / 2278 USD [Learned/Report for 2015] [required]
• Promotional material: 250 EUR / 285 USD (Posters/flyers announcing the event) [required] -> Lessons Learned from 2016 !
• Budget will be allocated within OpenGeoScience Committee budget as part of Open_Geoscience_Committee/budget_2020
• Costs: The total catering costs were 959,93 EUR (bill by Motto Catering, April 24 2019), which were paid via the OSGeo credit card (-> Treasurer/Mike).

Total requested amount from the upcoming OpenGeoScience budget: 2563 USD

Proposed Payment Method

• No seed money required
• All catering expenses (ca. 2000 USD) can be charged on the OSGeo Credit Card (as since 2014) before and after the event.

Support by OSGeo

• Finacial support
• Use of Logos
• Volunteers: Preparation phase, event hosting, presentations during the event (-> OpenGeoScience Committee).

Preparation

Timeline

Official EGU 2019 timeline and milestones

Timeline 2020:

• 2019-12-xx: Discussion on Open Geoscience Mailing List: Set up a Committee Budget for 2020, including a tab for the EGU event. Transition from Townhall format to Lunchbag.
• 2019-12-xx: Catering company has been approached on costs per person for a lunchbag meeting: 13 EUR and up p.pax.
• 2019-12-20: Budget 2020 submitted to OSgeo Board. Approval pending.
• 2020-01-09: Lunchbag Meeting timeslot for EGU Wednesday requested by COPERNICUS.
• 2020-01-08|09: Discussion on Board list wether a Board member should attend EGU. Negative outcome.

Timeline 2019 (Townhall):

• 2018-11: Open Geoscience Committee agrees to do a joint Townhall (suggestion by Ale Frigeri)
• 2018-12-22: Townhall has been requested from Copernicus by PL.
• 2019-01-01: Townhall has been accepted
• 2019-01-10: Update of Townhall abstract by Alessandro Friegeri (-> OpenPlenary).
• 2018-late-January: Open Geoscience Committee budget 2019 (with Townhall budge factored in) requested
• Three weeks before event: Caterer was asked for a quotation for 50 pax
• 10 days before the event: Caterer was asked to reduce quotation for 30 pax
• 9 days before event (a bit late): OSGeo treasurer Mike was contacted to authorize credit card access
• 3 days before event: Flyers / Pointers produced
• 2 days before event: Slidesets (OSGeo / OpenPlanetary) ready, speakers confirmed
• 8 hours before event: Flyers distributed / personal invites to interested parties
• 1 hour before event: Pointer-signs placed on walls, room inspection, etc.

OSGeo-related events at EGU GA 2020

• ESSI
• Early Career Scientists
• EGU Data FAIR ("Ask me anything about data - Helpdesk" - a new format in 2020)
• Planetary and Solar System Science
• Solar-Terrestrial Science
• Hydrology ?
• Tectonics ?
• Workshops ?
• Great Debates ?

Reach Out

Reach out to DLR, NASA, ESA, etc.

Points of contact: tbd

Mailing lists:

tbd

EGU Announcement Poster / Flyer

TBD

Meeting with local OSGeo/OSM chapter and activists

TBD

Presentation slides

TBD

Budget

20170117: 2250 EUR have been requested as part of the Open GeoScience Committee budget 2019.

Last years Lessons Learned

• Avoid conflicts with Medal Lectures ! This year, the TH coincides with the ESSI Medal Lecture for Kerstin Lehnert. ESSI medal 2018
• Sync timeslots with Research Software Engineer TH.
• Avoid time conflicts with ECS great debates !
• Plan for a meeting with the austrian OSGeo community ahead in time (4-6 weeks).
• Paper-based information material is becoming deprecated for reach out before the TH.
• Personally handed over printed invitations (business card size or slightly larger) still do work.
• A "swag-store" for OSGeo-Stickers and badgets works well AT the TH
• Bring a large banner to be hung in front of the room
• EGU doesn't do MoU like AGU.
• EGU has already a large number of medals, like the [[1]ESSI medal] which is already sponsored by ESRI - they will currently NOT yet another medal by OSGeo.
• Advertise well ahead on social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.), via OSGeo mailing lists, OSGeo webpage (news item) and related communities, like RDA, FORCE11, codemeta, etc.

Execution

tbd

• Starting point: Astrid Emde has suggested to use the OSGeo presentation from FOSS4G Belgium as a base.
• The state of OSgeo prez from FOSS4G Bucarest could also be used.

Lessons learned 2018 / 2019

• Catering was downsized in 2019 to accomodate 30 pax, still plenty
• 2019: A quick show of hands received equal votes for keeping it as an evenin event, a lunch event, or undecied.

• This year four "open themed" THs were held in parallel. This is really an issue. While it's good to see that "open" THs have picked up, the scheduling forces an unnecessariy XOR priorisation by the attendees. Need to talk to EGU/Copernicus about this (todo: PL).

• Paper-based hand outs/invites do still work, but because of the sheer number of attendees and the size of the value this does not carry far.
• Preemptive email-announces on mailing lists and twitter(?) seem to be much more effective.
• Make the presentations colorful & impressive.
• "Pointer signs" help to shuffle the attendees in the right room.
• TODO: Archive templates for Pointer Signs, Presentaions, and which mailing lists to be used in 2020.
• Sync with Research Software Engineers and other "open" THs well before EGU 2020.
• Do NOT order platters of food at Esterhazykeller for post-event get-togethers: It's way too much food and not cheap (bill was not charged on OSGeo, of course).
• Flag the event explicitly as "ECS-friendly" in the EGU-CMS.
• Do reach out to the ESRI booth staff
• Avoid timeslot collisions with:
  • Early career scientist events
  • Anything hosted by Kerstin Lehnert, Peter Fox,Lesley Weybourne, Jens Klump or Kirsten (GFZ)
  • ESSI medal lectures
  • Other "open/FAIR"-themed THs
  • Research Software Engineer THs
• Advertise the event at earlier ESSI sessions that day, including the ESSI Division meeting
• Advertise ahead of EGU on the ESSI blog.
• TH events at AGU GA are not necessarily as prohibitively costly as expected: Events at a hotel suite with alcoholic beverages ARE excessively expensive, but the AGU POCs (Shelley/Brooks) should be able (if contacted early) to help to get a room for a gathering.
• The ESSI medal is financially supported by ESRI, which receives due recognition and mentioning at the annual division meeting. Since EGU has is discouraging ideas for new medals, OSGeo could consider new ways to provide some funding support for the division to get public recognition: A price for ECS doing innovative software ?